BOOviePass: The Love Affair is Over.

Prelude

Strap in folks, you’re in for a tale of love, pain, and disappointment. It’s my journey through the one year subscription service that made me fall in love, only to make a fool of me in front of my friends and family. This is MoviePass. So about a year ago one of the co-founders of Reservoir Geeks (Andy Valentin) informed me there was a subscription service that allowed you to see a movie a day as many times as you wanted for only 9.95 a month. My first thought was that this was a scam, too good to be true, that Andy was getting my hopes up about seeing every Marvel movie at least twice. He wasn’t. I jumped on their limited time offer of a year for $97. How MoviePass works is that the company sends you a credit card and you have to download their app to check in to a theater to then use said credit card to buy your movie ticket. Easy enough right? Actually it was. Even before my card came in their E-Ticketing service was great as well, pick a movie and show time and pick your tickets up at the door.

Chapter 1Love, Lollipops, and Shit

My first six months went by great, I was seeing two movies a week either by myself or with a friend. It seriously was amazing all for only $10. Then started the technical issues with their system, at first it didn't really affect me, then i missed a couple of weeks due to their systems being down. I tried contacting their customer service… but there wasn’t any way to. Literally not a phone number or email address just their social media outlets, so my only choice was to lurk and see how they responded. It was slow, but they would give out info. It seemed like they were being overwhelmed by the number of new subscribers and issuing new users cards while updating their servers. No biggie two weeks off wasn’t so bad,it was like being ignored in a relationship to do what you want, but that was just the calm before the storm.

Chapter 2The Beginning of the Storm

After being bummed about missing a couple of weeks i got to make up for it by seeing 3 in my week back ( I’ll list later all the flicks I got to see). It felt just like old times, but this is the point in the relationship where it started to go down hill. After a few weeks of me crushing the box office like I did with MoviePass they decided to drive the first nail in our coffin. Andy informed me (at work of all places) that you could no longer see a movie more than once. I know a lot of people didn’t think that was such a big deal, but i did. If i really enjoyed a movie I liked to view it twice and that was no longer an option. I was hoping everyday that they would enforce this new policy after Super Troopers 2 was released At least we still had each other right? Well for the time being that is.

Chapter 3The Storm

Without being able to see movies multiple times I had to find a new hobby to keep me busy. I was cheating on my beloved service and I didn’t even realize it. Here enters Fortnite. I found myself playing daily to complete challenges that post everyday at 7pm. I’d catch a flick maybe every other week because of not much being in theaters that caught my interest. I’m just glad i got to catch Super Troopers 2 multiple times before MoviePass decided to drive a wedge between us. Then I truly had something to look forward to. The Infinity War, but as I purchased my ticket I noticed a notification on my MoviePass app asking for a pic of my ticket stub. The gig was up, she knew I was cheating on her with Fortnite. After the movie i decided to investigate why I was now being forced to take pictures of my stubs. It was to prevent fraud, which was understandable but really fucking annoying considering I’m the worst at keeping track of those things. This is where the big problem enters the picture.

Chapter 4The Levee Breaks

My son and girlfriend started to want to see movies that I had already seen with MoviePass, meaning I was now paying out of pocket on top of paying a monthly fee for MoviePass. This couldn’t get any worse right? Here’s where the real emotional abuse begins. SURGE PRICING! MoviePass was digging itself a hole financially and came up with a way to help, surge pricing. It’s a “small” fee for watching movies during popular showtimes. So i was just going to avoid the popular showtimes… but I couldn’t because every FUCKING showtime was now surge pricing no matter the day or time. How is this possible were people really flocking out to see Skyscraper and Hotel Transylvania 3 all day? NOPE! Come to find out MoviePass was only allowing a certain amount of ticket to be bought by their users before the surge pricing began to take effect. So people caught on and were buying their tickets at midnight and it meant that every showtime was now surge pricing, empty theaters were now considered surge pricing. It was really getting hard to be able to see a movie without paying a $4.75 surge pricing fee including matinees (which were $5.50). I really wanted to bail at this point and was informed that i wasn't able to get a partial refund because in the terms and agreements they’re allowed to change their policies at anytime. So I was stuck for a few more months until my ear was up. Lucky for me i paid in full for a year because at this time MoviePass decided to raise their monthly prices to $15 bucks a month on top of surge pricing, but wait there’s more they declared a no blockbuster rule. Meaning if they deem a movie is a blockbuster you either can’t see it at all or have to wait a month plus to see it. It’s time to walk away.

Chapter 5Closure

After a lengthy and profanity filled emailed to MoviePass I finally got them to cancel my membership. AMC is offering a service of their own for $19.95 a month which allows you 3 movie tickets a week and lets you see any showing. ANY SHOWING. IMAX and 3D included. It was a new relationship that truly appreciate my hard earned money by letting me order tickets ahead of time with reserved seating. So here’s a list of movies and how many times I got to see em before we hard to part ways. I truly loved you at one time MoviePass.Thanks for all the fish.